The song hung in a kindergarten in Somerville, Massachusetts.
Photograph: Alamy Stock Photo

A nursery rhyme based on a school shooting lockdown drill that was taped to a board in a Massachusetts kindergarten class has provoked a passionate online response.

Middle schoolers given bulletproof shields for starting high school

Read more

The lyrics, written to the tune of Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star, are meant to help youngsters know what to do in the event of an attack such as those in Parkland, Florida, in February and Santa Fe, Texas, last month.

Both those attacks happened at high schools. Seventeen students and teachers were killed in Parkland and 10 in Santa Fe.

The rhyme read:

Lockdown, lockdown, lock the door

Shut the lights off, say no more

Go behind the desk and hide

Wait until it’s safe inside

Lockdown, lockdown, it’s all done

Now it’s time to have some fun!

A parent visiting the school in Somerville – which officials did not identify – noticed the rhyme and publicised it with a tweet: “This should not be hanging in my soon-to-be-kindergartener’s classroom’.

The tweet prompted dozens of similarly regretful comments. But the parent, Georgy Cohen, said: “I’m only going to add one more comment to this: the school is doing exactly what they need to be doing, and I am glad for it.

“My issue is with the political [and] cultural factors that brought us to this sad state. Please talk to your legislators about the need for gun reform.”

Lockdown drills are common in schools across the US. Somerville officials told reporters the rhyme was the work of one teacher and not department policy.

In a statement, the superintendent of Somerville public schools and the mayor of the city said lockdown drills were a sad necessity, adding: “Unfortunately, this is the world we live in.”